Once one of the most popular marques, Wolseley finally closed in 1975. But, says Hugh Oram, more than its spirit lives on in Killarney
The largest collection of early Wolseley cars in the world, at the Museum of Irish Transport in Killarney, Co Kerry, is set to move to a new location next year. Wolseleys have "Irish connections" - Frederick York Wolseley, after whom the marque is named, was Irish-born.
The Killarney museum was set up by Denis Lucey, a vet by profession and an avid Wolseley collector. It opened in 1987 at Scott's Gardens in Killarney. A dedicated motor museum, it has almost 40 cars; fire engines; some 50 bicycles, including an 1825 Hobby Horse; a complete working old-time garage and many items relating to the motor business in Ireland.
One of its "stars" is a 1907 Silver Stream, the only car of this marque ever produced in Ireland. Another rarity is a 1901 Argyll,which has never been driven, and is claimed as the oldest unregistered car in the world. The museum also has a Belfast-built Delorean from the 1970s.
But pride of place goes to its collection of nine early Wolseleys, all in excellent condition. The oldest is a 1902 Austin Wolseley, while there's also a 1910 Wolseley Siddeley, once owned by the Gore-Booth family of Lissadell, Co Sligo.
This 20 bhp car, with a four-cylinder engine and a three-speed gearbox, is open-topped, with a canvas roof. Among those people who often travelled in it were Countess Markievicz and WB Yeats.
Another of the Wolseleys in the collection is a 1922 Wolseley Ten, a small runabout known as a "Doctor's coupé", and first registered in Dundalk on January 1st, 1923. Denis Lucey's daughter, Eileen Daly, who helps run the Killarney museum, explains that her father was always involved in collecting. When he was six, his father gave him a headlamp from a Rolls-Royce that had been used by the IRA in west Cork during the War of Independence.
The car was known as "The Moon", because it came out only at night, mounted with machine guns.
Ms Daly explains that until now the museum has been in the gardens at Scott's Hotel in Killarney. Now a major extension is planned for the hotel, and the gardens will be built over. So 2004 is likely to be the last season for the museum in its present location. The hunt is on for a new site, hopefully around Killarney, that will have plenty of room for the exhibits.
The Killarney transport museum may have the world's largest collection of early Wolseleys, but it's not the only museum in Ireland with ancient versions of this marque. The recently opened Museum of Transport in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, has about 25 cars on show, including three Wolseleys.
It's in a restored mill that was opened as a transport museum in 1997. The earliest Wolseley there is from 1910, while the 1948 Wolseley 14 was owned by the Smithwick brewery family of Kilkenny. The most recent Wolseley in Clonmel is a 1954 4/44, built in 1954 and registered in Co Tipperary.
Wolseley is of especial interest here, because the name has its origins in Ireland. Frederick York Wolseley, after whom the marque was named, was born at Golden Bridge House in Dublin in 1837. His ancestral home, for two centuries until 1925, was the Wolseley family estate at Tullow in Co Carlow; now it's a luxury golf resort and residential development.
Frederick emigrated to Australia when he was 17, and spent 40 years there. After many struggles, he invented a mechanical sheep shearing machine and then became interested in cars.
In Australia, he met Herbert Austin, who went on to found the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham. In 1889, after their success in Australia making the sheep shearing machine,Wolseley set up a factory in Birmingham, England and it was there that Austin designed and built the first prototype Wolseley car, a three-wheeler, in 1895.
Production proper didn't begin for four years, under the supervision of Herbert Austin.It was the first British-designed car to go into production in Britain.Wolseley himself died in January, 1899; he never lived to see his car go into production,which was later that year.
Wolseley was 62 when he died, having suffered from cancer for eight years. His estate was valued at all of £115. He was buried in an unmarked grave in a south London cemetery, and it wasn't until 90 years later that a group,including enthusiasts from the Wolseley Register in England,came together and had a headstone put on the grave.
Wolseley's personal history has been well chronicled by Jimmy O'Toole, once a journalist with The People newspaper group in Wexford, who now runs a building firm in Carlow town. He has written several books on Carlow's history, and has noted all the Carlow connections of the Wolseley family.
The Wolseley marque went through several changes of fortune and name, a complicated story indeed. It teamed up with other names, such as Siddeley,with which Wolseley was amalgamated in 1905. By 1911,Wolseley was one of the biggest car makers in Britain, but by 1926, the company had gone bankrupt. It was then taken over by William Morris, the founder of the Morris motor firm.
Many Wolseley cars were considered very classy at the time and are still revered today, classics of their time, especially those from the 1930s. Towards the end, the marque became part of the highly convoluted and often troubled BMC company.
In the latter years of the marque, the Mini-type Wolseley Hornet was quite fashionable. The most popular Wolseleys were the Marks I, II and III Wolseley 1500s, built at the Austin factory in Longbridge.
The last Wolseley was made in 1975, although in recent years BMW expressed an interest in reviving the marque.
About 60 to 70 Wolseley followers here form the nucleus of the Wolseley Car Club of Ireland. The founding chairman was John Wilkinson, who lives in Co Carlow; following a commemoration of the Wolseley family links with Tullow, the car club was set up in 1996.
It usually has a rally every year and club members, under current chairman Paul Macnaughton, are planning a rally in Co Donegal in September.
In Britain, the Wolseley Register caters on a worldwide basis for all Wolseley cars made between 1895 and 1975. It may be nearly 30 years since the marque went out of production, but its appeal lingers on and may be revived if the Killarney museum opens in a new, expanded location in 2005.